Storage Device Vocab

CD-R

(Compact Disc-Recordable) is a digital optical disc storage format. A CD-R disc is a compact disc that can be written once and read arbitrarily many times.

RAID

(originally redundant array of inexpensive disks, now commonly redundant array of independent disks) is a data storage virtualization technology that combines multiple physical disk drive components into a single logical unit for the purposes of data redundancy, performance improvement, or both.

CD-RW Drive

A CD-RW (which stands for Compact Disc ReWritable) is a Compact disc that can be recorded and erased multiple times. It can hold data or music. Most of the time it will hold data, since many CD players can not play CD-RWs.

archive cd

A device that has the ability to store ancient things onto it to save it for later

pocket hard drive

A magnetic disk drive that plugs into a USB, FireWire or eSATA port on a computer. Used for backup, secondary storage as well as transport, portable hard drives rival the capacity of many internal hard drives.

removable hard disk

A type of disk drive system in which hard disks are enclosed in plastic or metal cartridges so that they can be removed like floppy disks.

DVD+ROM Drive

DVD-ROM discs are widely used to distribute large software applications that exceed the capacity of a CD-ROM disc. DVD-ROM discs are read in DVD-ROM and DVD-RAM drives in computers, but typically not in DVD drives connected to TVs and home theater systems.

tape

a device that stores computer data on magnetic tape, especially for backup and archiving purposes. ... Tape drives work either by using a traditional helical scan where the recording and playback heads touch the tape, or linear tape technology, where the heads never actually touch the tape.

microfiche

a flat piece of film containing microphotographs of the pages of a newspaper, catalog, or other document.

microfilm

a length of film containing microphotographs of a newspaper, catalog, or other document

smart card

a plastic card with a built-in microprocessor, used typically for electronic processes such as financial transactions and personal identification.

Picture CD

a process that puts film images (including scanned prints and slides) on a compact disk as digitally stored images that you can view or work with at your computer.

floppy disk

a type of disk storage composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic enclosure lined with fabric that removes dust particles. Floppy disks are read and written by a floppy disk drive (FDD).

online storage

efers to the practice of storing electronic data with a third party service accessed via the Internet. It is an alternative to traditional local storage (such as disk or tape drives) and portable storage (such as optical media or flash drives).

access time

the time taken to retrieve data from storage.